Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/117

Cole, Edward William, was born in Jan. 1832, at Woodchurch, Kent, and in 1850 went to the Cape of Good Hope, from whence he arrived in Victoria in Nov. 1852. After leading a wandering life on the diggings, he came to Melbourne in 1862, and from small beginnings ultimately established the well-known Book Arcade in Bourke Street. Mr. Cole has also been successful in his literary efforts. He was married, on August 9th, 1875, to Eliza Frances, youngest daughter of the late C. J. Jordan, of Hobart, Tasmania.

Cole, Hon. George Ward, M.L.C., F.R.G.S., Commander R.N., was the fourth son of John Cole, of Durham, and was born at Lumley Castle, in that county, on Nov. 15th, 1793. He entered the Royal Navy in Oct. 1807, and served with distinction in various parts of the world, being on several occasions severely wounded. Having been placed on half-pay in Oct. 1817, Captain Cole went into the merchant service, and commanded several vessels of which he was part owner. After numerous adventurous voyages, and engaging in various speculations, Captain Cole in 1839 decided to settle in Sydney, and purchased land there; but, after a visit to England, he changed his intention, and made his home in Victoria, where he arrived in July 1840, and started business in Melbourne. In the following year he purchased land on the Yarra, and constructed the well-known Cole's Wharf in Flinders Street West, where Mr. Childers acted as a tally-clerk on his first arrival in the colony. In 1851 Captain Cole built the City of Melbourne, the first screw steamer seen south of the line. Captain Cole represented Gippsland in the old Legislative Council from 1853 to 1855, when he resigned with the object of revisiting England. Four years later he was returned to the Council for the Central Province, and was re-elected for ten years in 1860 and 1870 respectively. Captain Cole, who was a Protectionist, represented the MᶜCulloch Government in the Upper House during the long and embittered struggle with the Assembly over the tacks to the Appropriation Bill from June 1863 to May 1868; and in Nov. 1867 was sworn of the Executive Council. Captain Cole died on April 26th, 1879.

Colenso, Rev. William, F.R.S., F.L.S., the representative of an old Cornish family, was born at Penzance in 1811. He is a first cousin to the late Bishop of Natal, John William Colenso, celebrated as a mathematician and Biblical critic. In his youth he learned the arts of printing and bookbinding and worked in the office of Watts & Son, 2, Temple Bar, Crown Court, where he was for a time engaged on work for the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1833, the Church Missionary Society having decided to send out a press and outfit to New Zealand, Mr. Colenso was engaged in the double capacity of missionary and printer. After many difficulties and delays the press and plant were landed at the Bay of Islands on Jan. 3rd, 1835. On opening his boxes, however, New Zealand's pioneer printer found that he had no cases, leads, rules, ink-table, roller stocks, nor frames, lye-brush nor potash, and, worst of all, no paper! Fortunately he had provided himself with a composing stick, the resident missionaries had a little writing paper among their stores, the expert's ingenuity enabled him to supply other requirements after a fashion, and on Feb. 17th, 1835, was worked off, in the presence of admiring spectators, the first copy of the first book printed in New Zealand—the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, in the Maori language. Surmounting all difficulties, Mr. Colenso, in Dec. 1837, completed his great work, the entire New Testament, in octavo, small pica type. Out of the large edition of six thousand copies only one is now known to exist, the volume being in Mr. Colenso's own possession. A full account of the difficulties attending this publication, which reads like a romance, will be found in Mr. Colenso's little book, published in 1888, "Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand." The year 1840 saw the birth of the newspaper press, and thenceforward Mr. Colenso chiefly devoted himself to missionary work, in the course of which he traversed nearly the whole of the North Island on foot, and twice over crossed the great snowy range of the Ruahine. For two years he resided with Bishop Selwyn at St. John's College, Waimate. In 1844 he took orders and settled down in Hawke's Bay, where he has since remained. As a man of science Mr. Colenso has a good reputation, ranking high as a botanist, and being an